but to
await the end. Siegfried arrives; the Wanderer bars his way to try him;
but Siegfried has no fear of the spear, and the sword was made by his
own hands; so the spear is shattered, and he goes on his way. He passes
through the fire, which immediately subsides.

The scenery changes to that of the last of _The Valkyrie_, save that
(generally) someone has erected a wall behind Brunnhilda. It is a calm
summer afternoon; far away other hills are seen sleeping in the sun;
Grani, Brunnhilda's horse, grazes quietly at one side; Brunnhilda,
covered by her shield, her spear by her side, slumbers on. Siegfried
enters, and after many doubts, wakes her with a kiss. At first she
fiercely revolts against the new tyranny, the most terrible consequence
of her crime; but she yields in the end, and the drama ends with a
love-duet of a curious kind--not so much loving and passionate as heroic
and triumphant, with a most elaborate cadenza, as if Wagner had said to
himself, "Here's an end to all theories!"

In the prologue of the _Dusk of the Gods_ we find the Norns spinning in
the dark near Brunnhilda's cave; the rope they are at work on breaks,
and they learn that the end is near. They disappear; day breaks, and
Siegfried and Brunnhilda enter. She is sending him to do heroic deeds,
quite in the spirit of medieval chivalry; he presents her with the ring
and goes, wearing her armour and taking her horse. He arrives at the
hall of Gibichungs, where he finds Gunther, his sister Gutruna and
Hagen, a son of Alberich. They give Siegfried a draught which takes away
his memory; he falls in love with Gutruna, and when they propose that he
should take Gunther's shape and win Brunnhilda for him, he agrees at
once. In the meantime, Waltraute, a Valkyrie, knowing Wotan's need of
the ring, has come and tried in vain to get it; Brunnhilda refuses to
part with it. Presently Siegfried, wearing the tarnhelm, comes and
claims her, and compels her to share his couch, placing his sword
between them to keep faith with Gunther. The ring, however, he tears
from her. She is overcome with dismay and grief. When, at the end of
_The Valkyrie,_ Wotan had pronounced her doom, it had seemed bad enough;
but this is a thousand times worse, and she cannot understand the god's
cruelty. Arrived at Gunther's home, she of course recognises Siegfried
in his own shape, and knows by the ring that it was he, changed by the
tarnhelm, and not Gunther, who had broken through t